


Buried in the Desert

by deianaera



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-30
Updated: 2006-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deianaera/pseuds/deianaera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus would never forget meeting Julea in Las Vegas</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buried in the Desert

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for LJ's Omniocular in May 2006.

Her name was Julea-with-an-e.

That was always how he thought of her. Somehow, the distinction of her name’s spelling stuck with him.

He met her in a small casino hidden from tourists off the back roads behind the Strip. It was just shy of dawn and he had come in to take advantage of the cheap breakfast special offered by the run-down casino’s shabby restaurant. Ninety-nine cents could buy a shrimp cocktail, but here seventy-seven cents could buy two scrambled eggs and a biscuit smothered in sausage gravy.

The waitress, haggard and overly-made-up, had just taken his order and left. Remus was staring into the darkened casino beyond the restaurant when he saw her. The snap of her gum, so different that the quiet plink of coins into slot machines, caused his head to turn. She was young, tall and thin (too thin), with short, spiky, blonde hair. The flimsy scraps of cloth she wore barely met the demands of decency and left little to the imagination. Her face was pert, not pretty, but somewhat attractive. Her voice was high and light when she spoke.

“Hey, you mind sharing?” she said. Snap! went her gum.

Remus looked around the nearly empty diner slowly, then back at the girl, who was still snapping her gum.

“Why?”

She looked around nervously, clutching an oversized purse. Quickly, she whispered, “Look, the old bag over there will 86 me if I’m by myself. Let me sit with you. I’m staving. Please?”

Remus relented and moved over. She slid quickly into the booth and pressed against him. She smelled like drunken roses. Once she was seated, she pulled her gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the underside of the table. Afterward, she smiled at him and said, “Hi, I’m Julea, with an ‘e’.”

Ignoring her outstretched hand, he replied, “My name is Remus.”

“Oh, you’re British, your voice sounds so sexy. Here, tell me about yourself, I want to hear you talk.”

He almost laughed. This child wanted to hear him talk because of his accent. But the way she was looking at him, like he was special, no, like he was normal, it made him want to humor her. So he did, as much as he could. He told her about himself in vague terms, avoiding mentions of magic and his (say it here, in the safety of your own mind) condition. Nevertheless, he kept her attention throughout their breakfast, despite the glare from the waitress and brief pauses to inhale the cheap food. Afterward, he left the casino with her. Surprised to see the sun had risen, he parted with Julea, planning to meet with her again the following morning.

And so he did, every day for a week. Somehow, he was a little surprised to find out she was a (don’t even think the word whore) prostitute. He didn’t know why. Upon reflection, if he had to picture a ‘woman of the evening’, it would probably have been someone like her. Nevertheless, he met her outside the casino every morning, sat with her in the cracked leather booth, enjoyed the inexpensive fare, and parted with her at the casino exit.

After a week, instead of leaving, she stayed with him.

“Remus, look, I know this is kind of weird, but can I come crash with you? My…roommate threw me out last night and I don’t have anywhere to sleep. Please?”

Instinctively, he looked up to the sky and winced at the bright sun. It was a week from full moon. But her eyes (pale green, not like Lily’s) were so big and tearful that he sighed and said yes, but only for a week.

She hugged him and followed him, like a lost puppy, to his temporary home.

He didn’t mean to sleep with her, but there was only one bed and when she kissed him, he felt so normal. She may have been (don’t you dare think that – she was not a whore with you) a professional woman, but he was gentle and she cried afterward.

The next six days followed a pattern. She left at dusk, locking the door with a copy of the room key he acquired for her, and met him at the casino shortly before dawn. They dined on cheap eggs and biscuits, returned to his motel room, he held her, she cried, they slept.

On the seventh day, he made sure he awoke before she did.

“Julea, please, don’t come back tonight.”

“But, Remus, I don’t have another place to stay.”

“Find one. But, please, don’t come back tonight.” He growled as he said that.

“Remus?” She sounded so lost, so confused.

“Julea, just, don’t.”

She took her bag, locked the door with her key, and left. He bolted the door and closed the windows. Drawing his wand, he cast the charm to block sound from escaping the room before hiding his wand in the bathroom. He sat on the bed and waited for the moon to find him.

He was shredding the furniture when she unlocked the door. Saliva dripping from his distended jaw, poly-cotton fibers sticking to his claws, he smelled her perfume, that drunken roses scent, as she came in. Slowly he backed into the closet nook, animal cunning helping him hide from his prey. She closed the door and saw the disaster that he made of the bed.

“Remus?” she called out, her high voice filled with panic. He could smell her fear.

She screamed when he leapt out of the closet at her. Her soft skin parted like butter beneath his claws. Her blood was warm, coppery and salty. Her flesh did not taste good. It was bitter and stringy. Still, he gnawed on her bones while he tore at the bloody mattress.

When dawn came and the beast was gone, he blanched and ran to the bathroom to vomit until the toilet was as gore-covered as the walls. He rocked silently on the sink counter, staring at the room. He never meant this to happen. This was what he was always afraid of. This is why hid here, a transient in a transient town, a foreigner in a sea of foreigners, so this would never happen.

When the blood had congealed and his tears had dried, he began to clean the room. He felt numb as he gathered all of the parts of Julea that he could find and bundled them in a sheet he had mended with a charm he learned as a child. Setting aside the gruesome collection, he waved his wand around the room, repairing the damage to the inanimate objects (but you can’t fix Julea) and cleaning away blood until the room looked as it did when he rented it three weeks ago.

Picking up Julea, he Apparated out of the room and into the desert outside the city.

As the sun burned bright overhead, reddening his skin, he hauled the bloody mess that he made away from the freeway and into the scrub desert. Thorns pricked his skin and lizards scurried away as he walked until he could no longer see the black strip of asphalt connecting the city to the rest of the world. There, he dug with his hands a grave for Julea.

His nails were tattered when he was done. He had found the ground beneath the thin sand hard and unyielding. Still, he managed to dig the shallow grave without magic. As Julea had never known he was (a monster! a monster!) a wizard, he felt it was important (to punish himself) to dig her grave by hand. He buried her with an apology, hoping that Muggles could sometimes hear the living as ghosts did. He brushed the sand from his clothes and Apparated away again when he was done.

No one would know what he had done, but he would. He would always remember Julea-with-an-e.


End file.
